Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/137

 CHANDBAGUPTA AND SELEUKOS 107 bered thirty thousand cavalry, nine thousand elephants, six hundred thousand infantry, and a multitude of char- iots. With this irresistible force, all the northern States, probably as far as the Narmada, or even farther, were overrun and subjugated; so that the dominions of Chandragupta, the first paramount sovereign or em- peror in India, extended from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea. While Chandragupta was engaged in the consolida- tion of his empire, a rival was laying the foundations of his power in Western and Central Asia, and pre- paring to attempt the recovery of Alexander's Indian conquests. In the course of the internecine struggle between the generals of Alexander, two had emerged as competitors for supreme power in Asia Antigonos and Seleukos, who afterward became known as Nikator, or the Conqueror. Fortune at first favoured Antigonos and drove his antagonist into exile ; but in 312 B. c. Seleukos recovered possession of Babylon, and six years later felt himself justified in assuming the regal style and title. He is conventionally described as King of Syria, but was in reality the lord of Western and Cen- tral Asia. The eastern provinces of his realm extended to the borders of India; and he naturally desired to recover the Macedonian conquests in that country, which had been practically abandoned, although never formally relinquished. In pursuit of this object, Seleu- kos crossed the Indus in 305 B. c., and attempted to imitate the victorious march of Alexander. The details of the campaign are not known, and it is impossible